To Change the Universe
by ShyandStarryEyed
Summary: Kelly Baldwin is a just an average grad student in San Francisco. She lives a dull life with the same schedule every day, until one night the Doctor appears and changes everything.


**Hey guys. I started writing another Fanfiction that started out much like this, but after a few months of development and ideas, I decided to scrap it and restart with a new leading character and better beginning. This takes place a bit after the Doctor loses Amy and Rory, and pre-Clara. I'm just going to let you all know that I ship the Doctor and Amy, so I will be referencing that ship, instead of River/Eleven. **

**Anyway, I don't own the Doctor, Amy, Rory, River, or anyone in Doctor Who. I do however own Kelly Baldwin and anyone I make up along the way. This will likely be my only disclaimer this entire story, so I might as well get it out of the way. Enjoy!**

Kelly always counted down the minutes until the restaurant closed. Her schedule was so repetitive and lackluster that it nearly crushed her hopes of something exciting coming along her way. She would wake up at six, go to class at seven, finish class at one, do any work she had for school until five, then serve greasy, touchy-feely men in a diner that didn't even pay minimum wage until eleven. After work she would return home in a bus, because she knew it wouldn't be safe to walk home at night, then do more schoolwork until she couldn't keep her eyes open any longer.

Yet Kelly endured her dreadfully lame life simply because she knew it was either that or live her dad, her stepmother, and her wretched stepsister. And while Kelly sometimes loved to think of herself as a modern day Cinderella, she knew that her life truly was just pathetic. She always knew that there was no prince charming to woo that would remove her from her petty, simple, dull existence. And sometimes she was okay with that.

What she was not okay with were the customers that came through the diner. Kelly was absolutely sick of all the men that tried to treat her as an object for their amusement. She often got yelled at by the manager because "it wasn't their fault that you dressed so provocatively" even though she wore the uniform provided for her. She'd quit if she knew there was any other job that'd accept her right away, but it was surprisingly hard to find a job in San Francisco. So she bore on through the slimy men staring at her breasts (though she didn't think there was much to see there anyway) and just kept an even temper.

"Kelly, I've gotta clock out early. Have a date to get to," her co-waitress, Emma, shouted to her. Not that it really mattered; no one came in after ten anyway.

"That's alright, we close in twenty minutes. It doesn't really matter." But Kelly knew that this meant she'd have to stay an extra ten minutes to clean up after closing, which only meant she'd have less time to do her classwork.

"Thanks, Kell!" And with that, Emma was gone.

For the fifteen minutes that followed Emma's departure, Kelly tried to clean best she could without making it obvious that she was trying to close earlier. Five minutes to closing, the cook clocked out and Kelly was officially alone to close shop. Well, she thought she was at least.

Kelly was never particularly observant when she was at work, she tended to just keep her eyes low to the ground at mentally count how many hours, minutes, and seconds until she could go back to her apartment. So it wasn't really a big deal that she had missed the oddly dressed man sitting in the hidden back corner booth of the diner. He was, of course, hoping she wouldn't notice him waiting there until she closed the diner so he could investigate. And she nearly did miss him as she finished her cleaning and grabbed the keys to lock up. However, she just barely caught a glimpse of him wringing his hands and lightly tapping his foot impatiently.

"Excuse me, I have to close right now. I'm afraid I'm gonna have to ask you to leave," she said warily. The man quickly stood from the booth and swung around to face her, a large gaping grin spread across his face. This was, of course, his way of trying to come off as friendly and harmless, but instead he came off as a crazy psychopath.

"Right, well I'm afraid I can't quite do that," he rambled quickly in a Posh accent. "You see, there is quite possibly something very, very dangerous wandering about here and I'm going to get to it before it can get to anyone else. So if you wouldn't mind just stepping aside here and I can get on with my investigation."

"I don't know what you're talking about, and honestly I think you are completely insane. Look, it's past eleven now, and I've got a History of Art class tomorrow morning. I've been working since six, and I haven't eaten since eleven this morning, so either you leave right now or I'll call the poli-" Kelly was suddenly cut off by a loud bang followed by an inhuman shriek. "What the hell was that?"

"Well, you know that very, very dangerous thing I said might be lurking here?" Kelly stared at him, too horrified to respond. "Yeah, that's it. Follow me!" With that, the man grabbed Kelly's hand and dragged her along to the back kitchen with her.

The kitchen was pitch black until the man pulled a small green flashlight stick from his jacket pocket. The flashlight stick caused an irritatingly high-pitched sound that only lead to more banging and shrieking from the creature. The tweed-clad man yanked her forward, hastily attempting to get her to keep up.

"Would you mind moving a bit faster?" the man whispered sharply. Kelly rolled her eyes in the darkness and the man pulled her again, this time to the right.

"I would move faster if I could actually see something!" Kelly snapped, in a rather pathetic attempt at a whisper. The man shushed her and promptly dragged her to a new position. His green flashlight again made another grating sound and the lights of the room popped to life.

But before Kelly could say a word, she found herself face to face with a large, gray monster. The monster had five huge pink eyes without any pupils and was covered in what appeared to be slime. Kelly wanted to scream, but was fearful that the monster would attack immediately, so the man just yanked her back behind him. He stepped forward, aiming his flashlight at the large monster.

It was then that she properly could identify the monster's features. It was tall, about six feet in height, and was definitely fat. It had gray skin with a greenish twinge with a very rocky complexion. It was covered in some sort of gooey, slime, and had sharp teeth.

The man looked very frail and meek compared to the grotesque monster. Yet the man still stood with utmost confidence as he faced the monster. He seemed to scan the monster with his silly looking flashlight as it made its most annoying noise yet. Then the flashlight made a noise somewhat similar to a ding and the man grinned at it triumphantly.

"Exactly as I expected, an Athafium from the planet Emar. Haven't seen one of you around in quite a while. Why is that?" The monster growled, but did not make a move. "I'll tell you why, because you're disgusting, filthy creatures that attack young women and sell them to work as slaves on your planet. What a pathetic race you are. You were just waiting for the precise moment that you could enslave this girl over there. Well if you want her, then you're going to have to go through me first."

The monster let out a cruel, sick laugh and advanced towards the man. "What makes you think I will not kill you, puny human? You are no match for a Athafium." The Athafium took a swipe at the man, but the man ducked swiftly and lunged to grab onto Kelly's hand.

"Alright, this is where we have to run!" The man shouted as they ran through the kitchen and out the back door, with the Athafium in hot pursuit. As they sprinted through the now empty street, the man spoke. "What's your name then?"

Kelly, never quite the runner, panted heavily as she darted as fast she could. "Is now really the time for introductions?"

"I just figured we ought to know each other's names if we're in a life or death situation. I'm the Doctor, if you were wondering at all." The Doctor spoke so eloquently for someone who was literally running for his life.

"Doctor who?"

"Now's not the time for that! What's your name?"

"Kelly!" She shouted, looking behind her to find the monster speeding up to them. Kelly was fully prepared to keep sprinting, but the Doctor has pulled her to a stop and causing her to tumble to the ground. The Doctor turned and found that the Athafium was nearing the exact point he needed it to be. Drawing his flashlight, the Doctor aimed it at the light pole next to the monster, producing an explosion of sparks and forcing Kelly to cover her face for protection.

Kelly looked up to see that the monster had vanished, nowhere to be seen. The Doctor looked at her triumphantly and offered his hand to help her up. Upon taking it, the man yanked her upward into standing position.

Kelly took this moment to truly look at the man that called himself the Doctor. He was taller than her, about five feet, eleven or so inches. He had dark brown hair that she could only describe as 'floppy.' He had a very toothy grin that was unnervingly charming to her. He had peacefully green eyes that had seemed to hold knowledge and wisdom far beyond the years that he appeared. And the way he dressed was so out of place for a man his age. He wore a tweed jacket, suspenders, and God forbid, a bowtie. He couldn't have looked more than thirty, yet his persona led Kelly to believe he was so much older than that.

As the Doctor walked Kelly back to the diner, he met the age-old conflict of wondering if he should ask her to travel with him. She wasn't as outwardly brave as most of his companions were upon their first encounter, but then again, she was so tired and overworked anyway. He was, although, rather shocked that she wasn't immediately questioning him about who he was and what happened to the Athafium. She sort of just walked there next to him silently with an unreadable expression. Surely this sort of experience had to have been traumatizing for her, she had nearly been sent of into slavery on an alien planet, but she showed no signs of trauma.

Once they had reached the diner, the Doctor decided to explain to her about his travelling. He told her about the TARDIS and how he can go anywhere in space and time, and all the while she looked at him blankly, completely unreadable. He then began to tell her stories of places he had been and things he had seen, hoping to get a reaction from her. He hoped to find any sign that she would want to travel with him, but there was none. Finally he decided it was best just to outright ask her.

"Any chance you would want to come travel the universe with me?" Kelly simply looked up at him, blankly. Then slowly, but surely, she broke into a wide grin.

"I was beginning to think you wouldn't ask."

**There's chapter one! That took me three hours to write, wow. Well I hope it was an enjoyable first chapter, I've got quite a bit in store for the pair of time travellers. The story will be written from third person omniscient, so you will get both Kelly and the Doctor's thoughts throughout the story. Anyway, I think that's all I needed to say for this chapter. I hope you all liked it. If you did I would love to hear back and maybe get a few follows and favorites. Thank you!**


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